I paid $3500 for a good, used tyre

Dec 17, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – The most wonderful thing in the world was on the back seat of my car looking out the window, while I listened from the car stereo some wonderful love songs by the Italian phenomenon, Andrea Bocelli, from an album titled, “Amore.” I had just finished walking my dog and was going home driving along the seawall road yesterday.
A vehicle pulled up on me and someone stared at me through the window. Then a voice yelled out, “oh, Freddie is you, pull over.” The driver came out and said that he didn’t know it was me but he saw the car in front of him with the two front tyres looking really out of shape.
All I know about a car is how to drive it, though I have been driving since Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. He looked at the two front tyres and described them as really bad and said I should change them right away. One was very soft. There is a vulcanizing service at Cummings Lodge, a two minutes drive from Turkeyen where I live.
There one of the workshop boys just glanced at the tyres and said, “Mr. Kissoon, change those things right away.” I was advised that the car was badly aligned and that has eaten out the two front tyres. They suggested a used tyre store up the road – just five minutes drive – and I must immediately align the vehicle. I went and bought two used tyres that are in excellent condition.
After that I drove to Auto Car Accessories at John and Sherriff Streets to get the alignment completed. I asked the owner, Vishal, if the two used tyres are good. He took a look and said they were indeed. I paid $7000 for two very, workable used tyres. If David Granger and Winston Jordan were still running Guyana, I would have had to fork out five times the amount I paid for those two tyres yesterday. I asked Vishal how much he sells a tyre for my car (Vitz – tyre size- 160-70- 14). He told me he sells the Pirelli brand which goes at $15,000 each.
Both Granger and Jordan didn’t understand how the industrial world functions. You can import useful second-hand tyres because of the cultural outlook of people in the industrialized world. They do not drive cars that are more than three, four years old. They do not have tyres that are two or three years old. To crown it all, their roads are in immaculate condition. Maybe there is not even a hole measuring one inch on any highway in Japan.
Granger and Jordan didn’t understand the Guyanese economy too. We are a poor, Third World state. Our economy cannot sustain the exclusive reliance on brand new, imported tyres. What was it about the Guyanese economy that Granger and Jordan didn’t understand?
I am not going to comment on Jordan’s performance as Minister of Finance because the gentleman has a penchant for wanting to sue and really, I couldn’t be bothered with how Jordan feels about what I write. But this is what I am going to say and it is my right to say it – the banning of used tyres was a stupid policy.
It was thousands of policy mistakes like this ban that caused APNU+AFC to lose the election. They were destined to be a one-term government because they lacked the capacity to understand the class composition of the Guyanese nation. All those who shout out from the rooftops about PPP out to mash up African Guyanese were silent when APNU+AFC was mashing up African Guyanese from 2015-2020.
Where were their voices on the ban on used tyres? Jordan went to university. Granger went to university. When you proclaim a policy it has to be backed by research. A commonsensical example should suffice. If your scientists prove that eating papaw seeds gives you oral rash, then you ban vendors from selling papaw seeds. There was no study done to show a connection between accidents and the use of second-hand tyres.
Only the fools in the APNU+AFC government believed there were. Only a fool did not know that fatalities on Guyana’s roadways have three causes – high speeding, reckless drivers, mini-bus culture. In 2017, the ban was imposed on second-hand tyres. From 2017 until the APNU+AFC demitted office, road fatalities did not decrease.
I never wrote about what I am about to write. Any government that kills dogs because the owner couldn’t prove which country the dog came from is heartless and uncivilized. Guyana Livestock and Development Authority went on a killing spree at the Ogle airport in 2017. President Granger says he listens to classical music. I wonder if he likes dogs.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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I paid $3500 for a good, used tyre

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